radnor :
I always like a good discussion. Anyway, you missed some points.
Don't be picky. I speak Galician, Spanish, English and Portuguese during my work day. That was a friday night post. I was happy something readable came out of it. I get home a bit burned out at friday.
First: I have a very "abrasive" writing style. Dont take it persoanlly....it doesnt mean anything, its just the way I write.
Invention:
–noun
1. the act of inventing.
2. U.S. Patent Law. a new, useful process, machine, improvement, etc., that did not exist previously and that is recognized as the product of some unique intuition or genius, as distinguished from ordinary mechanical skill or craftsmanship.
3. anything invented or devised.
4. the power or faculty of inventing, devising, or originating.
5. an act or instance of creating or producing by exercise of the imagination, esp. in art, music, etc.
6. something fabricated, as a false statement.
7. Sociology. the creation of a new culture trait, pattern, etc.
8. Music. a short piece, contrapuntal in nature, generally based on one subject.
9. Rhetoric. (traditionally) one of the five steps in speech preparation, the process of choosing ideas appropriate to the subject, audience, and occasion.
10. Archaic. the act of finding.
Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.
innovation:
–noun
1. something new or different introduced: numerous innovations in the high-school curriculum.
2. the act of innovating; introduction of new things or methods.
Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.
Subtly twisting axioms is a trick which plays upon the vague familiarirty with axiom most people have to lead the target towards a specific idea. Just as Jay ‘conviently' twisted the old business axiom “only as good as their last success” to ‘only as good as their next product’ to use as a defence of one of his opinions.
Whether you did it on purpose, or by accident is of no concern to me. Only correcting the error which alters the meaning of any axiom concerns me. In this case, the error was just far enough to alter the axiom. Im a
very big fan of axioms....they have a nasty habit of proving true....when properly quoted and applied. They are the "lessons" of the past, often learned by mistake. Humans are supposed to learn from mistakes, their own as well as others, as such, axioms, when propely used, can prevent mistakes before they occur...that is avoid them. It is for this reason they are important to me, and why I dont suffer diddling with them.
radnor :
Well, yes and no. Japan and the European Devastated economies were the target of American Industry. The US became a super-power because of it. So did USSR and Cold War began. Arms Race, Space Race. Necessity was there. Still is.
I disagree.
Export (expansion into foriegn markets) was not a major concern of US industries
until the late 50s, early 60s, well after the WWII. Check the statistics...they will support that statement. Significant expansion into those markets was sought
after demand in US markets began to satbilize....when US manufacturing and consumption began to equalize. The US governments primary concern immediatly after WWII (the late 40s) was ‘reconstruction’, both national and international. Nationally that reconstruction focused on economic terms....Internationally, the USs focus was first and foremost, political stabilization. i.e seeing the "right" people climb to power. Economic reconstruction of axis economic infrastructure and/or expansion into that market was not even a distant second at that time, and for the european allies, the US wasnt to concerned beyond wanting to ensure they could satisfactorily "police" the defeated axis powers. This is unlike the US govenement of today which allows almost anything to be sold to almost anyone in the name of "good relations'. The post WWII US government was still controlled by wartime security mentality which was excessively restrictive in sharing of both knowledge and goods. In fact, the US was so concerned with security over foreign economy at that time, it destroyed hundereds of millions (in 1945 dollars...would equate 11.41 times the value in 2007 dollars meaning hundreds of billions to trillions) worth of military hardware vs giving it away or selling it. All across the US are "graveyards" of US WWII equipment which could have been sold, even for pennies on the dollar, but were not.
radnor :
Now, if American Companies removed that impressive Industrial Power from their borders (and governments lets them do it), thats your undoing. Free markets is one thing, the american way is another, what goes on at the moment is another completely diferent thing.
What?
radnor :
My point was, tecnologically, WWII acelerated the process. Rocket Science, Jet Engines, Nuclear Energies, Comunications, Avionics, etc. Hell even socially was a revolution because it ended (or trigered the beginning of the end) of a colonial period that lasted too long.
Yes it did. And it was those advancements and the industry/manufacturing base behind them that were a significant factor in fueling the post WWII commercial economy in the US.
radnor :
Credit is a funny thing. Your conclusions are not bad, but a bit off the mark. Maybe it is what we call diference of opinion.
Credit can boom a economy sky high. Cheap money does that. The problem was Alan Greenspan. The crisis was to come a long time ago (2004), but Mr Alan in his infinite greed knew people will continue to consume while the money was cheap. Sub-prime and Toxic Mortages have their names for a reason. What trigered the crisis was the high percentage of these types of loans. Of course Mr Alan wasn't there went the bubble bursted, he left a memo. Ill left you read more on that, you seem a pretty informed chap, but you might better look for the root of them problem.
Credit is a simple thing. There is nothing magic about it. They "grey" is introduced when only when profits are threatend. As for Greenspan, I suggest you study a little more. Greenspan was CFR for 19 years....since 1986, from Reagan through Bush Sr, Clinton, and into Bush Jr. He presided as CFR over Reagans economic boom, through Bush Srs "Stay the course" (Meaning keep Reagans policies in tact, which, laughably is what he did not actually do) all through the "great" economic times of Clinton (which the current instant gratification generation fail to grasp were the result of the economic infrasturture built by Reagan) and into the collapse the 'evil' Bush Jr 'created'.
People slay me. Bush created the recession. Greenspan created the recession. Well, which is it? Or could it be, that since niether has independant control of economic factors (anyone who thinks Greenspan acted independantly, with no pressure from either the congresses or presidents he served under, are purely misguided), and must work with/thru congress, that it was really a systemic failure rather than any individuals failure.
Bush did not create the recession. Greenspan did not create the recession. Congress did not create the recession. Wallstreet did not create the recession. All acted in concert, united by one common factor, greed. Some greed of money, others greed for power and yet others greed for both. Furthermore, getting back to the instant gratification mentality, economies are not "made" overnight. It takes time for policy to have effect, in the case of manufacturing, even decades. For the AMDophiles who though the NY fab would save AMD, here we are, 2.5 years after its announcement, and ground has yet to be broken. It will take at least 2.5 years once ground is broken for it to start turning out retail products. Thats at least (as of this moment) 5 years from announcment of concept to realization of concept. And thats just one little factory. The point of which is that people who want to blame the executive branch need to look back further than just Bush, to Clinton. Clinton took far to many 'shortcuts' and punctured far to many of the Reagan administrations long term plans (it is still, and will forevermore be up for debate whether Reagan was an idiot run by his staff, or whetehr he was a clever man who chose his staff wisely) ...just like printing more money...short term gain, long term damage.
radnor :
CEO can be Idiots, same way a President of the Federal Reserve. By the way, that is as public as the Federal Express.
What people/companies do forget, is credit is cool when you ask it, but you wil have to pay it and lose money in interests. ah heck isn't it ?
This is correct
radnor :
Your are better informed then me on this part. I'll buy you a beer. I've cutted for quoting purposes, your info was correct.
For the time being of course.
For the time being. It may change tommorrow, or next week, or next month, but that I doubt it. Most every report Ive seen now calls for the recession to deepen and last at least (at
least mind you) thru 2009.
radnor :
So you say the chip market will shrink about 2% ? On a prediction ? FYI Market Forecasts are made of Fail. Good analists know what to "read" from a forecast. Auto sales dropped almost 80% here in Europe in a few months. Now that is what i call a crisis. 2% ? Over a year ? On a Forecast ? Fluctuation. I've read all your post, believe it or not. It was a great post its the least i can do.
There are significant differences between the automobile market and the chip market making them exclusive of each other for comparison purposes. First, the automobile market is far more established globally than the IC market. What this means is that the market is far closer to saturation.....there is far less room for expansion than there is within the chip market. The single largest market expansion predicted for automobiles last year was in Russia. The reason for that is simple...Russia was an undeveloped market (not saturated) due to its own economic difficulities...which were created by there political system. As they were slowly emerging from those difficulties, far in advance of Chinas emergence (WRT to sociopolitical change) they became open to importation. Unfortunately, developement of Russian markets was significantly hampered by not only by communism in the 40s thru the early 90s, but by post communsim depression and crime. After the 'fall' of the USSR, the black market ran rampant. Criminal organizations were so unfettered after the collapse of communism that they crippled Russias free market and the industry/retail infrastructure that should have grown to fill post communism demand. It was only in the early 2000s that enough
external influence has been brought to bear that Russia has been able to begin effectively sorting itself out....and as that happened, it encountered resistance from the Russian govenment on 2 planes...those with ties to organized crime and the traditionalists who were interested in maintaining Russian autonomy even at the cost of stunting their own ecomonic growth. And now, with the recession, the Russian markets are once again a conundrum, and unreliable in terms of anticipating growth.
In terms of chips, the global market is far from saturated, excepting the US, in which (according to the Cebsus Bureau) by 2000 approximately 61% of housholds had at least 1 computer. By december of 2005, according to newsweek, half the homes in the US had highspeed intenet access. According to Gartner research completed in June 2008, emerging markets would ( or rather would have) account for 70% of new PC sales (an anticipated 2 billion units) through 2014. Again, this was from June 08,
before the recession became "official". At that time, the US, Japan and Europe held well over half, (58% to be exact) of PCs No newer numbers have been published yet, but it needs not be said that expansion into these new and unsaturated markets now stands to be significantly crippled.
In contrast, automobiles are far more entrenched in both the saturated and undeveloped markets than chips are. Computers have gone a long way to establishing themselves as a neccesity, but have not done so globally. The typical american or Japanese ( and some europeans) will not understand this, having now had heavy exposure to computers since the early/mid 1980s, but this is a cultural bias, not an economic reality. And that economic reality is that the computer is not a necessity of survival.
Conversly, in a culturally induced anomoly, the japan (specifically japanese, and not other sectors of the asian region in which both the automobile and chip markets are less developed) chip market is far more entrenched than the automobile. Being as (far back as the early 90s) the cost of obtaining a drivers license in Japan was equivelent to $3000(USD) the cost of an automobile operation/ownership was highly prohibitive. In another anomoly, due to crowding in Japan, mass transit and urbanization the automobile market was/is stable and unlikely to change significantly one way or the other with any fluctuations in cost of ownership/cost of operation. So while automobiles are not entranched in Japan, in those areas (economically, not geographically) where they are neccesary, they will remain so. Tiawan, Korea (both north and south) and China, though mature societies are still relatively underdeveloped/unstable in both markets. The chip market in china appeared much more likely to expand at a greater rate than the automobile market in the near future simply due to the political situation, however, growth in both markets is noe likely to be stunted. Korea (North) was/is similar, while South Korea. The situation in Taiwan is unstable and inderterminant due to political resistance to change.
India, though politically different than Japan was, to the best of my knowledge, very similar to Japan in certain terms of economics the last time I checked. This was simply due to the relations with China and Indias race to expand its military. Overpopulation, urbanization, an overburdened economy and developmental stunting have put India in a position where the personal automobile is far more of a status symbol that a neccesity within the general populus, and as such has stabilzed that market while the chip market was expanding.
I cant speak much on Laos or malasia.
Those middle eastern countries considered part of asia are so embroiled in conlfict/intertwined/unstable that statistics are scarce, and the geography/urban development is so diverse that stimations have proved inconsistant however, the automobile market, from what I can tell is far more stable than the chip markets. There are some exceptions such as Israel and Kuwait, but those are difficult to to get accurate stats on due to the amount of foriegn support they recieve, and how it is distributed.
The point of all this, as I said, is that comparision of the global automotive market to the global chip market is not valid. There are similarites, but the fuctionality, estblishment, and cultural perception (both of need and staus) are so different as to make them exclusive.
radnor :
WWII situation here. The crisis will come. The need will be there. Companies are already adapting. Some of them. IT companies seem faster and better managed than the rest.
I beg to differ....see EDS. Unless you mean faster to layoff. There I would agree with you whole heartedly.
radnor :
Don't be too worried here. In accounting terms, used good aren't a very sound investment. I guess most that hardware will be exported to other nations, that could NEVER buy them new anyway. So it is going to satisfy a demand that existed, but there was no product for it. There are emerging economies that will grab them pretty fast. Don't worry about the cost of shipping, it is just too big of a volume.
I beg to differ there as well. Since you chose to incorrectly compare the automobile market to the chip market to try and prove a point, I will now do so as well. The used automobile market in the US was expanding by leaps and bound in the US by mid 2000s, the growth fueled (ironically) by "growth" in fuel costs as well as well as new auto depreciation. In the 70s and 80s, a new car depreciated by half its sticker value almost immediately after it was "driven off the lot". Expansion of japanese market share coupled with improvements in US manufacturing quality changed the depreciation thru the 90s and into the 2000s. Simply put, cars lasted longer, and as a result became more attractive as (to use the dirtbag saleman term) "pre-owned" commodities. Going by expansion of the "pre-owned" auto market, then the preowned computer equipment market should expand as well, for the same reasons...improvment in quality and longevity.
Back to the emerging econmies...china and india....those are dependant....dependant! on the US and Europe economy. The cannot expand if we dont consume. They own populations cannot drive the expansion....they have no money. They didnt have a WWII (involvment in, that is) like the US did to fuel demand and fill their populous pockets with money. The former USSR is teetering on the brink....they have potential, but their political system is still so screwed up that commercial enterprise is severly hampered. One day its "forge ahead", the nest day its "stop, you cant do that". The middle east is in financial crisis as well. While the middle east has its oil money, they have been spending it as fast as they get it. Check out the news from OPEC. Many OPEC nations are scared because their expenditures now greatly outstrip their income and their cash reserves are shrinking fast courtesy of falling crude prices. And consider that the prices people see in the news are not the actual oil prices, but the "delivered" prices, those charged by the commodities brokers
after they have negotiated with the suppliers, meaning the suppliers see less of that money.
radnor :
Here you really missed the spot. While we enthusiasts look at shiny new chippery, a company when buys, buys on bang-per-buck ratio. The IMC is important, or it is a factor, but server market benchmarks are a bit more complex than gaming/enthusiast ones. So don't lose your temper here. i7 needs a new plataform, Shangai needs a bios upgrade.
There will be customers for both.
.
Nothing to lose my temper about. Going back to as far as the release of C2D, I was an advocate of AMD going for marketshare over higher ASP....simply for the reason of keeping the fingers in the customer pockets (sustaining market share) while they developed new products which would in turn generate return sales/upgrades/ as well as fuel market expansion though desirability(economic). Unfortunately, for AMD their 'new' product at the time was Phenom, which because of its flaws was not positioned well to generate upgrade revenue let alone expansion.
You are quite correct, i7 requires a new chipset, but more than that it also requires new ram, either of which means a new motherboard. Rgeardless, i7 puts Intel on the same perfromance track as AMD, where AMDs perfromance in server was more attractive due to the IMC.
And yes, you are correct, there are different benchmarks, two of the most valuable in server being, Floating Point and Interger. Typically over the past several years, AMDs IMC gave it an advantage in floating point, while Intel consitantly had an advange in integer. Unfortunately, for Intel, in the most demanded (not demanding, but demanded, those most likely to be used) server applications, floating point perfromance is of greater value than integer, but FP performance comes at a price...greater memory requirements. Use of the IMC "allows" greater bandwidth, translating to faster memory transfer, which offsets the higher memory requirements and gave the advantage in most typical server applications to AMD. DT on the otherhand, does not typically require the bandwitdh capabilites of IMC, but it for gaming, web browsing, spread sheets or word processing, and in other areas, such as transcoding or rendering, the advantage higher bandwidth
could provide was useless. The limiting factor in common DT applications, both private and enterprise, had been "conditioning" data (processing) and not data throughput. Post netburst Intel Uarch (C2D) gave them an advantage in integer which was more valuable to these operations than floating point, with the odd, application peculiar exception.
In short, in a perfect IT world, the typical (75%) "ideal" configuration would have been Intel workstations feeding/being fed from AMD servers.
Do not mistake me for an enthusiast. I am not, nor have I ever been I am far to old....I am what you would term a 'motorhead'. My youthful enthusiam for automobiles does allow me to understand the computer enthusiast, and I must remind myself often of 'enthusiast' motivations when I see people doing things like spending $10000 (yes, 10 thousand) dollars on a custom painted case, or bickering over LN cooling perfromance, both of which IMO are worthless. For me, a computer is only a tool, and the time I spend tinkering is not a hobby, but an annoyance of neccesity. As such, I am removed from manufacturer favoritism, caring about only what value I can get. But Im not yet old enough to no longer understand it....just old enough to realize what a waste it is.
radnor :
Golden sentence here. Now, the economy is Global. The US markets are no longer number one. The EU market is bigger, and the Asian market is getting ridoculously huge. Now were americans irresponsable ? I guess it is their undoing. In Europe (dependign on each country ofc) it was never as easy as in the US, to get credit.
The asian market was in the process of getting ridiculously huge, however, since the US was one of the major consumers of asian goods, recession in the US affects them directly. In fact, the asian markets were far more greatly affected than the US market only last month, when they dove sharply on a Friday in anticipation of a high unemployement report in the US. They could not react to this report in real time as they would not recieve it before the close of business for the weekend due to time difference. So, in response to predictions of a poor report, they demonstrated reaction. Cause and effect. Thats the thing about a global economy, isnt it? Pain in one market is felt by all.
With the USs transtion to an overall consumer vs an exporter of material goods, those countries which export to the US will feel the impact of a rcession in the US even more than the US will feel it itself, as the US market is weened form dependancy on its own production. However, what the US does "export": training, IP, "middle men" etc, the intangible 'products' will aslo be impacted once foreign manufacturing receeds, as those manufacturers will require less of those services provided by the US. The term is "viciuos cycle"
radnor :
Maybe we Europeans are as much as irresposible as you Americans, the diference it is out governments have some controlon things. While you Americans hate government regulation, it was un-regulated action that brought us to this mess.
Control is an illusion, and if you think europe has anymore than the US, I would invite you to a corner of the forum populated by a higher percentage of non US citizens who will probably disagree with you...strongly.
radnor :
Now be responsible. The "Bush Bailout" is pocket money. In NYSE the first (day) slump of the crisis 1.3 trillion evapored.
I find this humorous........ "The Bush Bailout". I think you mean "democratic congress" bailout.
The Bailout bill you refer to was, infact, crafted by the US congress, or rather, members of the US congress. Interstingly, The congress is and has been for some time controlled by the democrats. The US is a Triumvirate...a 3 'headed' system, legislative, judicial and executive. No one, with certain exceptions temporary in nature, can function independant of the other. Bush can no more pass a bailout himself than congress can...both must agree, and even if both legislative and executive agree, if there is any question regarding the legality of any descisions, judical can intervene and block.
Interstingly (but in no way contrary to their modus operandi) , the democrats take no resposability for the economic crisis.
Pelosi: Dems bear no responsibility for economic crisis
When asked whether the Democrats “deserve some responsibility” regarding the economic crisis, Pelosi responded: “No.”
“John McCain said that this is a result of overregulation by the Democrats in Congress,” she added. “Either he doesn’t know what he's talking about or he’s misrepresenting the facts as he knows them. But it’s simply not true.”
Republicans responded quickly, pointing out that a Congress led by Democrats had not helped the economy.
“The Pelosi-Obama Congress has failed to pass an all-of-the-above energy plan, failed to stop earmarks, and failed to break the partisan gridlock that plagues Washington,” RNC spokesman Alex Conant said. “If Pelosi thinks the Democratic Congress is doing a good job handling the economy now, then just imagine how bad our economy would be if Democrats controlled the White House, too.”
Anytime anyone of the branches points a finger at any of the other branches without taking some measure of responsability themselves, they are lying...pure and simple.
From Sept 28, just before the bill was shot down by congress itself
Buffett to Congress: Bail out economy or face 'meltdown'
Word of Buffett's omen came hours before Democrats posted a draft of the bailout bill online and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Sunday afternoon she hoped the chamber would vote Monday.
Buffett, whom Forbes magazine has placed at No. 2 on its 2008 list of richest Americans, was one of several business experts whose opinions were sought, Sen. Kent Conrad, D-North Dakota, told reporters Saturday.
Buffett is chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. His wealth is estimated at $50 billion. Buffett was consulted by telephone, Conrad said. Watch leaders announce progress on the deal »
Conrad, who heads the Senate Budget Committee, said he was involved in some of the talks, though he is not on the formal negotiating team, which is made up of Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Missouri; Sen. Judd Gregg, R-New Hampshire; Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Connecticut; and Rep. Barney Frank, D-Massachusetts.
Negotiators had worked to reach consensus on a package and announce a deal in time for the start of financial markets around the world, Gregg said.
Flanked by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and other congressional leaders, Pelosi said just after midnight Sunday that a long evening of talks on Capitol Hill had yielded progress
You really should give credit where credit is due. The plan was no more Bushes than it was Pelosis....
ALL the scumbags put their fingers in that pie. Oh, by the way, both the republicans and democrats shot the bill down the first time.
And the 700 billion isnt the only charge. The "total" bailout is now over 7 trillion, of which that 700 billion was only part, and given the state of the state economies (no pun intended) if they have their way, that number will rapidly approach 9 trillion. Look for the total bailout to exceed 10 trillion this year.
radnor :
No, i don't have links. Look it up. The real information is there, you just need to open your eyes on it, or talk to friends with financial/Economy professions so they can explain you some points. You will be surprised how gray is the financial world..
You dont have the links/information because it is old/outdated. Things/times change. The predictions you refer to were actually from Gartner, the very same source I quoted. The difference is the prediction to which you refer was form June 2008.......prior to the economic collapse. Mine is much more current. Which does not mean its right, only more accurate as a reflection of current events/trends. The economy may very well reverse itself, and Gartners latest predictions may turn out to be as wrong as their june predictions. This is not likely, but still it does fall within the realm of 'all things possible, however unlikely' ( to alter another famous quote, this time for my own purposes.)
radnor :
Those are not Comercial banks. Soz.
I suggest you look at the link/map again. In fact it covers all banks, commercial and otherwise. Yes, ther are fewer commercial banks, but as more business fail, more commercial banks will fail. That 'domino' is further down the line.
radnor :
Yes, they will. Yes they will survive. Diversification. Don't be so alarmist. And don't spread panic please.
I am not spreading panic, nor fud.
Fact: AMD has lost money 8 of the past 8 quarters
Fact: AMD is deeply in debt (over 5 billion)
Fact: AMD has sparce little cash on hand ( less than 1.4 billion)
Fact: AMDs financial planning to stabilize some of their debt failed (Lehman Brothers deal failure)
Fact: AMDs prospective "partnership" has yet to materialize (Mubadala)
Fact: AMDs prospective "partneship" has been renegiotiated leaving AMD with much worse terms. (mubadala)
Fact: AMDs plans to expand its manufacturing capacity are threated by potential bankruptcy of NYS
Fact: The economy is in recession and receding further.
The cascade effect will likely cause further detriorationof the global economy unless the recession is checked. The bailouts in the US may slow or even check the US recession in short term, ( which should filter out to those "emerging" markets dependant on expotation to the US) but the long term price of those bailouts is likely to be greater than the cost off letting the recession run its course, even if that course deteriorates into outright depression.
Conclusion of facts: High debt coupled with very limited cash on hand in a receding market and failure of "partners" to "fully" support (NYS, Lehman Brothers, Mubadala) = strong possibilty of bankruptcy. Does this mean they are going to go bankrupt? No, but they
are in dire straights...thats not panic, just the facts. Even if the economy does take a hard 180 in Q1 (not going to happen) and AMD produced nothing but gold in both its CPU and GPU divisions, it still has to dig out from over $3 billion in debt and do so
while competing. Jay seems to think a few extra processor sale will turn AMD around, but even if they
double net revenue of the best recent quarter, Q3, they will barely be breaking even, let alone paying off the debt. Even if the triple net revenue and cut another quarter out of their overhead, it will take them another 3 years to climb out of debt. # years is a long time in a tipsy economy, and assuming things will proced perfectly for 12 quarters is a long stretch of of an active imagination. Of coure, the same applies to loss, but AMD has demonstrated 8 quarters of loss, Q4 is a forgone conclusion (though numbers wont be out for another few weeks) and Q1 will likey be a loss as well, courtesy of the economy.
If stating facts and strong probabilities based on those facts panic, then Im guilty. As for me, Im not panicked...I dont have to be because Im not one of the imbeciles who sold their soul on credit, or decided to lie about the products I produce.
As for diversification, unless you mean they are going to buy stock in corporate farms, diversification within the computer industry isnt going to help....the tech industries are going to continue being hit hard.
Finally, again I will state that I have a very "abrasive" writing style. Its not personal, its just the way I write.